Yesterday, trying hard as it might to twist the meaning of words and facts, the Military Prosecution in Warsaw (including Ireneusz Szeląg) again confirmed that TNT traces had been detected in the Tu 154M wreckage.

So I ask again: why were those journalists sacked? And who should be held responsible for concealing the truth, blatant lies, misinformation and "fanning the flames" of discord?

An email from behind the Iron Curtain, reactivated. What a funny or ironic turn of events.

I started writing the email a few weeks ago but left it unfinished for a while and now I know what made me wait. Generally all the media are preoccupied with the global changes and the crisis and seem to be ignoring what is loomig behind. In the meantime, a totalitarian regime is shaping up in Poland facing growing opposition determined to fight for democratic freedoms and civic anf human rights which are being gradually restricted. And this is all happening in the middle of Europe just under yor noses. The representatives of the system have learned from the Hungarian lesson and they won't give way easily.However, Orban's example shows that the struggle for civic rights is not a hopeless task.

Poland is now becoming a totalitarian state, with standards close to those in Belorus. There are several causes of this process. If you want to analyse it you have to apply several analitical perspectives. First, you must take into account the postcolonial perspecive based on the fact of long colonial occupation and its social and structural implications. Then you have to add another perspective - that of consumer or consumptionist system supplemented with the influence of the mass culture ( it would be even better to talk of popculture) and marketing. All these factors combined have weekened the status of formal democracy in Poland and made it easier for the postcommunist to take over the tools of real power again. The power is now back in the hands od old postcomunist or postcolonial "elite" planted here by the Soviets, which is gladly tolerated by the left wing political structure of the EU. All the freedoms won in the wake of the peaceful revolution of Solidarity n the 1980ties have beenn rolled back and a new system has been shaped.

If you look at the series of a very long series of political corruption scandals and the meagre public response you will realize how the system works. The society, weakened by occupation and the extermination of the real Polish elite is under pressure from all kinds of factors from moral disorder to economic hardships. Luckily, the opposition, mainly from the new generations, has managed to stage a number of demonstations which the regime and the public cannot ignore despite the total control over the media. To keep the balance in its favour the regime uses all kinds of very clever and sophisticated marketing tricks, inventign ploys to attract or distract public attention as they find it convenient, for example inventing "terror scares" or trying to introduce legislation banning "hate speech" which would silence their opponents.

The latest moves by the regime include the dismissal of the editorial staff of the most reliable daily paper "Rzeczpospolita",critical of the regime, taken over some months from a British owner by a private supporter of the regime and now the editor in chief of the most popular and independent weekly magazine,"Uważam rze" has been dismissed,by the same owner and following the dismissal all the journalists have decided to quit in protest. Thus the last of the free and independent media have been eliminated "from the market". I know this is wrong to talk of any market because there is no free market in Poland. The system is fully, structurally - economically and politically, controlled by the postcommunists.

What a funny thing to watch for a former democratic opposition activist, dissident and political prisoner like me - 20 years after the engineered "fall" of communism we have again dissidents, independent sociologists and politologists as different from "courtier's useful idiots", independent journalists, political prisoners or offenders, victims of legal abuse (ha, ha),all forms of censorship, political, legal and professional intimidation and unexplained deaths of important witnesses. The details are so specific that English is not flexible enough to render the pecularities of Central and Eastern European social and political problems. And no commando raid style reporting so typical od west european media can give you any knowledge of what is going on here.

The allies covered up for the Russians about Katyn before, so there is no reason to think they are above doing so again.
The heir to the Polish throne Churchil put in prison, and the president of Poland died while on a British plane, so there have been now two presidents dieing on allied planes after protesting Katyn.
Probably the explosive story is a "red herring". In reality, someone turned off the "beacon", and turned on another one at a different location, causing the crash. this is the easiest way to cause a crash in a low visibility landing.
I have read that one female crew member was walking around after the crash, but "died of a broken neck" while being transported to the hospital for "observation". I would like it if the Economist or one of its readers could investigate this.
Although, as with the Polish heir to the throne, the Allies (USA, Britain, Russia) have proven that they will cover up for Russia.
Not to mention that the American people are still so gulible that they fought WWII to save Eastern Europe from a dictator who killed 10 million, forgetting that we gave eastern Europe to a dictator who killed 50 million. What kind of rescue is that? Sounds more like propaganda supporting the Allied troups that are STILL in Europe, and Japan.
If the Allies decide to kill the oposition, at least the Economist could be frank about the issue.

Partial translation from French:
"A fun joke All-Warsaw: " What is the difference between Radek Sikorski [the Polish Foreign Minister] and God ?
Answer: " God does not take himself for Sikorski ! " In fact, the head of the diplomacy does not shine by his modesty. In his annual speech to the Parliament on March 29, 2012, he did not hesitate to declare: " Poland today is the best we have ever known. " Taking stock of its EU presidency, he adds: " I am proud to say that despite the adverse circumstances, the leadership of Poland is widely regarded as the best since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty . "

"The man does not hide his ambition. " He sees himself, says one of his relatives, as president or, failing that, Head of the European Commission, General Secretary of the NATO "

If the story was a plant to trip up Jaroslaw Kaczynski, it worked a treat... (from Rzeczpospolita, 10 November)

PiS losing support
The recent turmoil following the controversial article in Rzeczpospolita about explosive traces found on Tupolev wreckage didnÕt help the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, show the results of the latest TNS Polska poll. The support for PiS has slumped to only 30%, compared to 39% in a similar poll carried out a month ago. On the other hand, the ruling Civic Platform (PO) is enjoying a 9% increase in support. As many as 42% of Poles declared they would vote for PO, were the vote to be held today.

Kaczynski & co swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. If there's a conspiracy - it's who planted this ludicrous story in Rzepa? It's obvious why - the new-style, issues-focused Kaczynski was overhauling PO in the polls; now he's been revealed as a Smolensk conspiracy obsessive who is too dangerous to be allowed anywhere near the levers of state.

The inability of the Polish right is face up to the banal fact that the crash was an accident brought on by bad weather and incompetence reminds me of the Republican party which despite all the evidence in the sky continues to question global warming. Common sense is suspended, and a barrage of phoney science is brought to bear to convert the waverers.

Of course, there are other historical examples as well. The communists had no shortage of willing intellectuals (aka useful idiots) to produce reams of dense texts which few read but greatly helped to bolster the respectability of the cause. Ditto for the nazis.

Professor Glinski, Binieda, Szuladzinski et al are in a long line of intellectuals who for presumably a variety of personal reasons (fame, revenge etc) are willing to lend their names to dodgy causes.

Your ignorance is showing. There is plenty of iffy evidence, and the official report is so bad it doesn't even deserve attention. Why are you so hell-bent on protecting the official story even though you can't possibly have any evidence? You merely believe what you want to believe, like the Smolensk extremists. You can't possible *know* that the crash was just a crash, not even in the best case because the best case for you means reading the report and the report is bogus. What is really going on is that you want to believe whatever officials tell you because you can't bear the thought of being lied to, or you are really an intellectual cretin and pawn. And despite your pretense to evidence, what right do you have to accuse Binienda of seeking fame? He's already well-established in the field. Why don't you read his report based on merit instead of attacking the person, you hideous propagandist.

How do I "know"--ok point taken, most evidence we have to accept without physically verifying it oneself. The same of course applies to you. To the extent possible, we make judgments based on information provided by third parties and conveyed by the media---there was an aircraft accident in Smolensk (I have never been there myself), the weather was terrible, the crew was repeatedly advised to land elsewhere, the navigator did not speak Russian, the plane was late to take off, training of the crew was inadequate...On the basis of this incontrovertible information you have a very compelling explanation that this was basically a tragic blunder with no need to resort to highly unlikely surmises (fake fog, helium, explosions etc).

The most likely reason for the crash was the same as in Miroslawiec. Interestingly, there were no claims of fake fog, helium, onboard explosions in that case, presumably because the list of passengers was relatively apolitical.

So no, it’s not propaganda, it's common sense. May I ask you the same question: why are you so hell-bent in propagating another version of the event which makes so little sense?

The most pertinent analysis and comment has come from Mr Zbigniew Brzezinski, the very respected and listened to leading US expert on Eastern Europe and former National Security Adviser to the US White House.
He considers the entire "sabotage, bombing, mass murder by the Polish government" scenario utterly ludicrous and the persons promoting it and the associated conspiracy theory, grossly irresponsible and unfit to form a government. The same persons also by their actions help the Russians (Soviets to quote Brzezinski) to further Russia's interest in weakening and disrupting Poland (which according to him is why the Russians have still not released and returned the aircraft wreckage, nor the airplane's black boxes, though the crash occurred over 2.5 years ago.

Above all the truth said by Brzezinski, I am afraid his words will have unfortunately an effect of - again - silent consent from the people for lack of action-driven attitude, lack of decisive actions and negligence in the way the investigation is being carried out.

And I doubt his words will make an impact on the way the opposition acts.

So whatever good were his true intentions, his words will do more bad than good in the overall picture.

It's funny how people forget Zbigniew Brzeżiński was White House National Security Advisor during Jimmy Carter's single term. This is perhaps because the naturally leftist media, e.g. the BBC, presented Brzeżiński as a "hawk", whereas Carter's administration was anything but hawkish. In fact in foreign policy terms it was a catastrophic failure, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis to mention just two of the most dismal failures. It was Carter who took the buck and quite unsurprisingly was resoundingly defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. It was then that Brzeżiński showed his nasty streak. He detested Reagan like all the mainstream lefties did, and therefore spread stories about Reagan snoozing during meetings. That might or might not have been true, but even with later Alzheimer's disease Reagan proved to be a real leader and it is he whose statues are rightly erected in eastern Europe today. Carter, it soon turned out, also had what it takes. In the 1990s he positively flourished as a diplomat, what people can achieve when they are freed from Brzezinski's advice. Because Zbig is a big non-achiever who only makes out to be an expert on this, that and the other. He publishes books which no one really bothers to read and gives interviews whenever the media need a quote from a useful idiot. That's all that really needs to be said. Now, like Reagan, he is old, but unlike Reagan he's just an old fart. I won't use stronger words, he's probably almost as oblivious as Angelina Jolie. Though Paweł Świat, the widower of one of the victims, used a strong word (also used by young novelist Dorota Masłowska's about the jeering hoard shipped in by Palikot to Krakowskie Przedmieście), "zbydlęcenie". And I can't help but agree that this time Brzeżiński did cross that line.

Professors Brzezinski and Pipes were the two leading advisers on National Security in the Carter/Reagan/Bush era which terminated the Cold War with the dissolution of the Soviet Unuon and its Empire. Both of Polish origin and closely collaborating in that period, both continue as valued experts on the successor states who are listened to by successive American administrations. Both helped create the political climate which allowed Poland and other ex-communist states join NATO. Where Brzezinski failed was with the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 where his advice was ignored by a procrastinating Carter, who otherwise was effective as a President especially with regard to the Soviet Union, specially when "human rights" were leveraged to the disadvantage of the Soviet Union and its puppets. As to Reagan, he was par excellance a great communicator and had the ability to select a first class experienced government team to whom he delegated policy implementation.

With regards to Brzezinski's current analysis of Poland and the Smolensk aircrash it is based on thorough American Government analysis and information. Brzezinski has close ties with and access to the highest policy levels in the USA. His words are a reflection of current USA thinking.

What's claptrap? The undeniable facts that not only the Iran hostage crisis but also the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred when Zbigniew Brzeżiński was Jimmy Carter's adviser? Is my appraisal that at the time US foreign policy was in a shambles unfounded? What was the White House doing? Resorting to a disastrous Delta Force hostage rescue attempt and gestures of utter frustration such as the boycott of Moscow Olympics? That year Kozakiewicz achieved so much more than Brzeżiński, while the consequences of the 1984 Olympics that year became a foregone conclusion - smart move. I didn't even mention Zbig's expert appraisal of Islamic fundamentalism in 1997, i.e. nothing to worry about. And how can you square this great influence he (or rather his son) has on the Obama administration with his professed support for Poland's inclusion in a missile defence system, scrapped by an agreement with Russia, above Polish heads, on Sept 17th! Was that on his advice? Do you know the significance of Sept 17th? And as you yourself noted, two decades after the collapse of the USSR, he still inadvertently speaks of Soviets. That's how "thorough" and on the ball he is today - pretty much the same as he was over 30 years ago.

Ronald Reagan's administration was completely different, I made that very clear. I said that Reagan deserves to have statues erected in Eastern Europe, and in Gdańsk indeed he has. I did not mention Richard Pipes, and if had, I would have stressed that he's a completely different kettle of fish. I might categorically disagree with his appraisal of the Smolensk disaster, but being a 90-year-old, scholarly historian rather than explosives expert, I don't expect him to be right about everything. And however much I might not agree with him today, I'd never call Professor Pipes a non-achiever.

As for Brzeżinski's assessment of "hysteria" and playing into the hands of the "soviets", I'd say he's almost right, except that its coming from a completely different quarter, his own and people who immediately dismiss all valid arguments as "conspiracy theories", "warmongering" and "claptrap"

Brzezinski is the only Polish Bilderberger and therefore I don't trust him to tell the real truth on what happened on that airplane , on the contrary I would fully expect him to be part of the cover-up, et voila, there he is, bang on cue.

It is no doubt anymore after 2,5 years that Russia is doing what it can to make it hard for Poland to find out what were the real causes of the airplane crash. There are too many evidences to that at this point that it would be simply inaccurate to deny it by any logic mind.

However even in the light of recent news regarding traces of explosives or - as polish government prefers to call it publicly - substances that might be explosives but do not have to as they need 6 (!) months to make sure if it were or not - the question still remains: Is Russia making it hard because there is a russian guilt hidden in it or is Russia making it to simply play with polish government the way it wants - conflicting Poland from inside and weakening polish country for its own benefits.

Russia gives Poland information which it wants and when it wants. It either takes well-thought steps or doesn't undertake any steps by which in both cases it insinuates that Russia hides facts from polish government, which causes suspicions among polish nation.

Therefore, in both cases, with or without the explicit guilt in this catastrophe, Russia is already the winner. And in both cases, current polish government is always a loser.

Why would the polish government be a loser if it occurred that Russia put their fingers into the plane crash? Pro EU and pro US Prime Minister would be put in a very uncomfortable situation in the light of Russia's explicit guilt. The historical past shows that so called western allies did not help Poland during WWII when the help was needed. It was very uncomfortable and economically unreasonable for western nations to engage in conflicts against polish invadors. If we had similar situation today, for which of western countries it would be comfortable enough to find itself in a position of HAVE TO admit that Russia assassinated two polish presidents and many top country officers, and therefore standing for Poland?

I am convinced that polish pro-western Prime Minister is fully aware of the fact that if evidence showed that Russia is guilty of the catastrophe, he would be in fact left alone again on the international stage with his problem, and his aspirations to do a career in EU parliament would have been wasted forever. And that would explain why the polish investigation of that catastrophy is so slow, full of flaws, facts are being covered up, media are being taken for personal conversations with PM's people - like Rzeczpospolita after releasing uncomfortable news.

I voted for this government and used to be its strong supporter, however recent years showed me that this government is not capable to stand for what is right for Poland and polish nation. It is too weak and too fearful to deal in situations when a leadership of strong hand is required, and therefore is comfortable for western governments.

"that Russia is doing what it can to make it hard for Poland to find out what were the real causes of the airplane crash."
Real cause is that it crashed. It crashed because the weather conditions were poor, the "airport" was not prepared for such difficult conditions and the crew decided (probably under pressure) to land anyway. Every single evidence supports this scenario. Whether Tusk is good or bad leader doesn't matter - the bombing thesis is pure nonsense.

"the bombing thesis is pure nonsense" Exactly! I can't agree more. And "pure nonsense" strategies work the best if all believe they are pure nonsense. Only the brave ones have guts to use them though. And only the individuals standing out of the crowd have the chance to prove against them. And Russia? I would not hesitate to say they would be capable of using such pure nonsense strategies.

The crash is not the real cause, the crash is the outcome. Outcome of still large enough question mark to make judgments based on up-to-date available facts.

So basically what you are saying is that because the bombing is such absurd theory it might be actually true?. OMG, I hope it is just some misinterpretation on my side or some bad wording on Yours. But if not, then let just assume that it was interstellar conspiracy and aliens form Alpha Centauri was after human DNA and destroyed the plane in the process. Even more absurd and even more true then...
But frankly, don't you think that such tragedy deserves being treated seriously?

That over one third of Poles should believe that the crash was an assassination is thanks to two and a half years of PIS propaganda. Over this time, people in Kaczynski's immediate entourage have spewed a continuous barrage of pseudo-scientific nonsense including artificial fog, helium and mysterious on-board explosions. It is outrageous that the leader of the opposition (Jaroslaw Kaczynski) has aided and abetted such absurd theories even though he has been careful not to commit himself personally.

The explanation for the crash laid out in the Anodina (Russian) and Miller (Polish) reports remains by far the most probable--essentially a mix of poor weather conditions, incompetence and bravado. The same explanation lay behind a very similar crash of a military aircraft in Miroslawiec just two years earlier. Unfortunately, the recommendations from that earlier crash were not implemented in time to avoid what happened in Smolensk.

Given the current level of distrust, a new international commission maybe is a way forward. However, I doubt many of the conspiracy theorists will ever be convinced.

Utter negligence of all the aviation regulations and procedures, toxic atmosphere aboard the cockpit where the main pilot was doing practically all the work and the rest of his assistants were completely free of any tasks to perform and were just watching the flight, psychological pressure coming from the main passenger of the plane exerted upon the inexperienced pilot who, upon this occasion, was not assertive enough to refuse to land (he had been assertive during the preceding landing in Tbilisi upon which he had been threatened that should he ever dare to oppose again the President's will to land in future he would be fired and there's a huge, huge unemployment in Poland - there was a very heated debate and interpelations in Polish Parliament on how could a simple pilot dare to oppose the President's wish to land on such trivial grounds as bad visibility due to weather conditions, had the pilot refused to land in Smolensk he would have been fired in my opinion - Mr Jarosław Kaczyński is a man without any sense of humor or decency), traces of alcohol found in the blood of one of the high-rank officials body in the cockpit - such were the causes of this tragedy.
"...around one-third of Poles think it is possible that the Smolensk air crash was an assassination."
One has to fully understand the whole socio-political situation in Poland naowadays. Mr Kaczyński's adherents are extremely pushy in this matter, they constantly propagate something new about this event, they create new hypotheses and recreate the old ones, they do their utmost to let this tragedy remain alive, what's more, the very act of admitting that there was an assassination in Smoleńsk is the ticket of admission into the circles of PIS (Law and Justice) party in Poland. You just can't claim that you support PIS and be against all those conspiracy theories.

wszycho, when 96 people all suddenly get killed, it's not only good manners, but above all common sense and standard practice to first try and establish how it happened and not who is ultimately responsible. I mean "psychological pressure" does not make rivets pop out or the bodies of plane and passengers to fragment.

Let's first allow such purely physical questions to be answered by engineers and other experts. If the answers they come up with are not entirely satisfactory, we can get other specialists to challenge them and come up with a better explanation. Wings do not fall off on account of the amount of alcohol found in someone's blood (if indeed such alcohol traces were found, which I very much doubt). I also very much doubt they come off as the result of a high speed collision with a 30-40cm knotty birch trunk (if indeed there was such a collision, which I very much doubt). I don't think having doubts makes me a "conspiracy theorist". Indeed, most Poles now have doubts as to the findings of the Anodina and Miller commissions, therefore now not only Law and Justice but also all the other political parties other than the ruling Civic Platform party are having doubts and mooting the call for an international investigative commission.

This matter shouldn't be political and it needn't be. I think having doubts is a sign of possessing a critical mind, only supporters of ruling parties and idiots never have doubts.

The more time elapses the more investigative some politicians in Poland become. In the meantime, i.e. during those long 2.5 years since the tragedy, certain things were being constantly repeated in the Polish media, some other more cumbersome facts were carefully omitted. Poles were just made into believing that it was something other than just another tragic accident due to pilot's errors.

The plane wrecked as a result of many other factors which, accumulated, brought about this gigantic political tragedy. Let me remind you that the airplane's wings are not designed with the intention to cut trees in mind, they are supposed to oppose the air during the flight and not the wood.

And Poles were most certainly made to believe the pilots made some mistakes (contrary to custom, government and air force officials didn't even attend their funerals). The problem is that to this day these supposed errors have not been clearly pointed out, only implied. For instance there was certainly no drunk general in the cockpit when the plane fell apart.

During the final stage of the flight the plane was flying with the speed of 300km/h instead of 200km/h. It has been clearly pointed out. OK, there was no drunk general in the cockpit when the plane fell apart, nevertheless traces of alcohol were found and it was an official visit to a place which should mean something to the late President of the Republic of Poland and all the other people whom he had carefully selected for the flight with him on that day.

A broad range of possible speeds was taken into account in Binienda's simulation, same goes for tree thickness and density (as well as other qualities), wing strength and angle of impact, and in every instance the wing cut through the birch with only superficial damage wing skin.

Alcohol traces were found only according to the Russians. Take their word for it if you will, but it still bears no relevance in explaining why and how the plane fell apart and it's a scandal that the Anodina commission issued such information. I already said, this is not the time to cast aspersions, but if you must, please consider the fact that no Polish security officers were waiting for this VIP delegation at the airport, why?

As ten of millions of other Poles, I was greatly depressed by this tragic accident in Smoleńsk. But I really hoped that we were through this whole trauma as a nation! Now, all of a sudden, Mr Jarosław Kaczyński comes back to this tragedy, accusing, yes, exactly, whom is he accusing this time? I live in Poland and, really, I never heard of any such person as this fellow named Binienda. I am very much afraid that his simulations are equally bizarre as the whole idea of coming back, after 2,5 years, to this tragedy. Yes, it was a huge, huge tragedy, but let's not play with it today. Alcohol traces were found only according to the Russians, because only Russians were examining the bodies immediately after the accident. You say it's a scandal that the Anodina commission issued such information and I say that it's even a greater scandal that Polish representatives, this Polish elite VIPs who went to Katyń at the expense of millions of Poles, considered it appropriate to drink alcohol before laying wreaths on the tombs of Polish soldiers who were so brutally murdered by Stalin regime during the war.

Many weeks ago the Polish prosecution was allowed by the Russians to examine parts of the wreckage for explosives. We even know what portable apparatus they used (very modern and reliable) and the readings they got in a vast number of places within the fuselage and parts of one of the wings were very strong, quite unmistakable. It could not have been rubbed off the uniforms of soldiers transported from Afghanistan, because they wouldn't have travelled on the wings. In accordance with the wonderful arrangement "negotiated" by Tusk's government, the samples are now with the Russian authorities, they will probably be released in a month's time, but why Szeląg says it will take another 6 months one can only guess. The story is being corroborated every day and the prosecution is unable to deny it (hard as it might). We now know more about how contrary to professed principles, the prosecutor general rushed to inform prime minister Tusk a month ago, and how the owner of Rzeczpospolita met with Tusk's spokesman Graś the night before the story was finally published. The subsequent sacking of the editor-in-chief journalists was totally dishonest and hysterical. Because there is certainly a lot of hysteria quite obviously stirred up by the Russian side, which continues to publish gruesome photos of the victims on the internet, but it's not coming from those who genuinely wish to find out what happened. No, it's coming the from the Polish and Russian governments, from their media friends and from useful idiots like Zbigniew Brzeziński and Angelina Jolie. Useful, because unlike Prof. Binienda, they are people folk like you might have heard of. But no amount of hysteria will conceal the truth.

You on the other hand ignore all the most obvious evidence, e.g. the plane fragments that everyone saw (and no crater), dismiss any hard evidence if its not drummed into vacant heads through all mainstream channels day and night, and insist on treating as smoking gun evidence a supposed blood sample that tells a story quite contrary to what is really known about the virtually teetotal General Błasik, just because it was mentioned in the quite discredited Anodina report. Manners prohibit me from spelling it out any more. I just hope one day, in another world, you'll be able to look those Polish NATO officers in the eye:

I'm certainly not that kind of person who would like to offend or attack all those who tragically died during this plane crash. If people who knew the late gen. Błasik say that he was a teetotal then I'm going to revoke my comment touching him, and apologize, of course. I am an independent person thinking according to the Polish raison d'etat, and any opinions, statements, interviews given by such people as Mr Brzeziński or Ms Anodina are completely irrelevant to what I am thinking on this accident (I don't even care to learn what Mr Brzeziński has just said about it, judging from one headline which I couldn't escape reading which said that Mr Tusk is of good opinion of Mr Brzeziński I presume that Mr Brzeziński is against Mr Kaczyński and in favour of Mr Tusk in his statement, but I'm not going to read what he said because this might distort my clarity of perception in these matters which are so important for Poland. I'm also a Roman Catholic, as most Poles are, and I do have some strange feeling that something fishy was going on around this accident, yet I just don't believe that someone from the outside assassinated these people, I just believe that the cause of this accident was the bravado of the pilot who found himself under an insurmountable psychological pressure exerted upon him to land no matter what. Today's President of Poland, Mr Bronisław Komorowski was once a minister of defence (15 years ago exactly - it was after an accident during November 11th event in autumn 1997) when he told on the Polish radio that "Polish pilot must be able to land on the barn's gate should the situation reqire it". This same pilot who died in Smoleńsk initially refused to land in Tbilisi in 2008 and was seriously threatened with dismissal, they were just going to fire him, because they suspected him that his refusal to land in poor weather conditions in Tbilisi was politically motivated (there were parliamentary debates in Polish Sejm about this pilot's insubordination soon after the Tbilisi incident).

You say you're not influenced by the mainstream media and then go on to repeat two of the most inane pieces of mainstream garbage imaginable. Bronisław "bul" Komorowski was indeed for a time minister of defence, and as useless in that capacity as in any other. His "barn door" comment is as inane as Churchill's "Russia is an enigma..." quote (how can you say about a state that since the Mongol invasion and Ivan the Terrible has always pathologically been the same?). But whereas Churchill sometimes also managed to make some very perceptive comments, "bul" Komorowski's utterances are invariably crude and often also very rude (the catalogue is long).

The interesting thing is that at Komorowski first boasted the Polish pilots were the best in the world, awarding them medals, and then, suddenly in 2010, he maintains those same pilots were absolute idiots.

The second piece of Gazeta Wyborcza manipulated garbage you cite is another example of how the mindless masses are easily misled. The Tbilisi trip was historic, it is the most symbolic reason why Lech Kaczyński was officially declared a National Hero of Georgia. There was for a moment a minor difference of opinion as to whether or not the plane should fly directly to Tbilisi, which was then in a war zone. But this difference of opinion occurred and was quickly resolved on the ground. Lech Kaczyński's spectacular achievement of drawing world attention to a brutal invasion at the time of the China Olympics had somehow to be downplayed. Thus Civic Platform (PO), including Komorowski (then Marshal or Speaker of the Sejm), blew the quickly resolved difference of opinion out of all proportion, awarding the pilot a medal. Unfortunately, some members of Law and Justice rose to bait and started attacking the pilots. That was a very foolish thing to do and I certainly don't think most Law and Justice MPs significantly differ from the time-serving cretins in PO. But this bears no relevance to Lech Kaczyński, who was in critical situations (when it was really important) every inch a gentleman in the best sense of the word. It bears no relevance to any of the military commanders who died on 10.04.20120.

These are media stories made up to support an even more outrageously counter-factual story of "cabin pressure", and as I told you at the very start, quite unproven "cabin pressure" or pilot error can in no way explain the break up of the plane and the fact that everyone died. We know the parameters of the planes speed at the time of the disaster, we know the parameters of the the trees and terrain, and therefore we know it is physically impossible for the plane to break up the way it did (with the front part the right way up and the back part upside down) by simply crashing into the ground. This is why appealed for you to desist from casting aspersions and inadvertently repeating mainstream media propaganda.

Dear "from Gdansk" - I do hope, that my post will not appear twice, as I've been "fighting" with The Economist complex logging system :-)

Again, I really appreciate your patience in commenting aggressive and often rude posts of mainstream propaganda. I think, they will not be convinced, as they will not convince us, but anyway, this is all what we can now do, to honor the memory of our people who died in Smolensk. Chapeau bas!

Thank you for the kind words. Of course I never expect to convince any of my interlocutors, but I enjoy exchanges anyway and as you rightly state: what else can we do? Patience, I've learned, is essential because propaganda is only effective through its tireless persistence (not arguments). Therefore we have to be patient and persistent, too.

Dear Author ! The information about an army prosecutor who shot himself through the cheek in a strange suicide attempt, is not correct. The man - col. Mikołaj Przybył - was not working on Somlensk planecrash case. He was deadling with the issue of corruption in high value tenders for Polish Armed Forces.
Regards from Warsaw

Col. Przybyl was involved in a military prosecutor's office internal investigation into the matter of diclosure of some confidential information to journalists. And he attempted to commit suicide (although in rather strange way by shootong himself through the cheek - it's certainly a very sophisticated way of commiting suicide, surely KGB was involved ;-) )because the journalists accused prosecutor's office of illegal investigation against freedom of press.
So, Mr Przybyl was invloved in a side investigation. As far as I'm aware, he was not working on the plane crash case itself.

These are the "Bloodlands". No surprise that people are thinking of murder and cover-up. Poland has been a victim of Russian policy since the liquidation, called separation, of their once mighty kingdom. It's sandwiched between Russia and Germany, whose atrocities against the polish people were underestimated a long time, as your esteemed newspaper reported a short while ago. But times have changed and Poland should leave these gruelling memories behind, a hard task indeed. The Poles should take comfort from their newfound prominence in a united Europe. Poland isn't lost yet!

The chain of events that preceded the rzeczpospolita publication may indicate the conspiracy by itself rather than an attempt to unveil the alleged conspiracy of the plane crash. The event was preceded by an unusual cumulation of accusations and anti-government verbal attacks including some suspicious polls indicating sudden loss of social support of Mr. Tusk cabinet. New, so called "technical government" was impromptu organized by the opposition and some hard line opposition journalist started to openly call people to civil disobedience including street demonstrations. A few minutes after the article appeared the opposition leader, Mr Kaczynski virtually accused the government of murder. At this point it only took the prosecution to confirm the accusation for the riots to start with the coup d'etat to inevitably happen. The prosecution denied the accusation and the plan collapsed. The possibility of attempted government overthrow remains very plausible as the Polish leader of opposition has a long history of intrigues and conspiracies including a few attempts of "nailing" Mr. Tusk on alleged corruption mementos or an attempt to destroy his former government coalition partner Mr. Lepper by manipulating him into a corruption trap. For the last few years Polish society has been under constant Goebbels-style brainwash attempting to convince it about the government (otherwise having many political and economical successes on its side) being unapt, corrupt and even committing treason by collaborating with neighboring superpowers. No wonder some people are disoriented and the number of them is growing. Mr Tusk himself and his PR people take some blame too, unfortunately. The ability to communicate its agenda to the people is weak and unconvincing. As of today the opposition is in a little shock after the setback but no one has any doubt that Mr. Kaczynski will get discouraged by the unfavorable event so the show will go on and on.

That was perhaps the very first animation issued by MAK (i.e. the Russian side) showing a very long, boring, and here and there no doubt not entirely accurate record of the gradual descent. What it does not show are the very final seconds and how the plane actually fell apart. It does not show what should interest everyone the most. Why did no one survive? How and why did the the plane break up the way it did?

The simulation below, also now fairly old, but far more recent than the MAK animation, is much more detailed and accurate. Therefore it is also more logical and plausible.

You see, preoccupation with one conspiracy theory saves our Polish 'conspirators' on this blog from spending their valuable time on inventing and debating other unrelated 'conspiracies'. Time is valuable. There is so much to speculate about and so little time ! :)

Oh I definitely believe it is real. The subtitles seem to be a lot of guesswork though, especially the one where the siren is going off yet they can hear what someone is saying. I'm not even sure they can say the sounds heard are gunshots, it's completely ridiculous, after a crash like that it would be pure chaos, fire, smoke, those sounds could be anything. It seems like the people moving into the site are first responders reporting to the scene.

Can you tell me what the filmmaker says? He says the same thing twice loudly. And what is that siren for? Is it a military siren as the videos suggest?

As usual the POOland conspiracy theorists forget about the data from the three black boxes recovered after the accident. This black boxes were examined by various inspectors including US ones.

"A black box voice recording from the Polish jet which crashed in Russia shows the pilots knew they were about to crash, Polish officials say.

Polish chief prosecutor Andrzej Seremet said it was clear the crew knew disaster was "inevitable" after the plane hit tree-tops.

....

Mr Seremet, for his part, told Polish radio: "The crew was aware of the inevitability of the coming catastrophe, if only due to the plane shaking after the wings hit the trees - which we are certain happened."

Col Zbigniew Rzepa, a Polish military prosecutor, said the pilots had been aware of the imminent crash as the last seconds of the voice recordings "were dramatic". He did not elaborate.

"The presence of the Polish air force commander on the flight deck up to the aircraft's impact with the ground put psychological pressure on the crew captain to decide on continuing descent in a situation of unjustified risk, dominated by the goal of making a landing at any cost," she said.

According to pathology tests, alcohol was found in the blood of Gen Blasik in a concentration of 0.6 grams per litre - just above the drink-driving limit for most EU states."

The black boxes were faked by Russians. As were alco testes. Simple.
But really, there is no use in discussing with fans of conspiracy theories since they would just discard any fact that is not supportive to their view of world. What is really sad is that those supporters of conspiratorial theories (at least the politicians publicly supporting such nonsense) are not really believing in that crap - since they are just producing new and new theories - one more ridiculous than another.
The crash had been a true tragedy - not only to the victims and their families, but to the Poland as a whole, since it showed Polish arrogance, irresponsibility, bad preparation and administrative inefficiency.

There were actually four black boxes in that plane - the fourth one, was additional to three standard ones, and was Polish own production (ATM company). Since Russians did not know, how to decode they returned it unopened - the other three flight recorders were opened in presence of Polish officials and their content copied. The fourth flight recorder was analyzed by ATM guys (the manufacturer) who found no traces of manipulations. Conclusion - all flight recorders were perfectly consistent with each other, no traces of any 'faking'.
There were no traces of explosives found - such tests have already been made by both Polish and Russian inspectors at the crash site. This current research is done by Polish prosecutors who run independent inquiry from that by Jerzy Miller. They have merely found traces of chemicals which are related to toluene - which is very frequently used. Now check the chemical diagram of toluene and TNT, you will see why they are similar. But discovering traces of toluene related chemicals is by no means a proof of TNT explosion! It is a simple method to tag those samples which ought to be analyzed further.
The article in Rzeczpospolita was so badly written that a good high school student would have had no problems to show that it is self-contradictory (e.g. what are 'ionized high energy particles'??!!!).
Furthermore, the analysis of the wreckage shows that the plane did not explode, there were no traces of explosion, which are characteristic for in-flight explosion - like pieces of fuselage bended outwards.
Besides, it is simply an act of stupidity to accuse Russians that they would use so outdated and inconvenient explosives like TNT and nitroglycerin...

But I agree, the govt should have been showing how absurd are those conspiracy theories. Their popularity shows the tragic state of our education system.

I may only agree with the predecessor:
The crash showed Polish arrogance, irresponsibility, bad preparation and administrative inefficiency. The way the investigation has been handled did not improve that impression.

Hi,
Fanning the flame of conspiracy theories. I am trying to develop algorithums for information management of where relationship from associated information is made. With Poland and politics it gives energy, Kaczyński, Vlad, crash, Tusk, fiddle.